Sports Criminals: 4 Mark Rogowski

Sports Criminals: Mark Rogowski

March 19, 2014

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Your typical murder revenge traditionally involves finding the person who wronged you and killing them — not killing someone who has nothing to do with your beef.
No one told this to Mark "Gator" Rogowski, who kicked off a respectable skateboarding career at 14, and would go on to win national championships, rub shoulders with Tony Hawk, collect substantial endorsement cheques and make an appearance for the music video for Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'."
During this time, Rogowski maintained a troubled relationship with Brandi McClain. After a series of failed career moves lead him to embrace a strict Evangelical form of Christianity, McClain decided to leave him four years into their relationship.
After that, Rogowski began drinking heavily, would break into McClain's apartment, and made threats to her and her new boyfriend. Unaware of the dangerous situation, a friend of Brandi's named Jessica Bergsten called up Rogowski to see if he could show her around San Diego. Bergsten had just moved to California and Rogowski agreed to take her out.
A day of sightseeing ended back at Rogowski's condo where he clubbed Bergsten unconscious, raped her, suffocated her and then buried her in a shallow grave out in the desert. For his misplaced act of revenge, the former skateboard champion received a 31-year prison sentence. He was denied parole in 2011 and won't be eligible again until 2018.